father growing more and more
estranged from her. True, he had never met her love so warmly that it
was not somewhat checked and chilled; true, his nature had reversed the
law of reason, by having systematically treated her with less and less
of kindness ever since the nursery; she did seem able to remember
something like affection in him while she was a prattling infant; but as
the mental daylight dawned apace, and she grew (one would fancy)
worthier of a rational creature's love, it strangely had diminished year
by year; moreover, she could scarcely look back upon one solitary
occasion, whereon her father's voice had instructed her in knowledge,
spoken to her in sympathy, or guided her footsteps to religion. Still,
habituated as she long had now become to this daily martyrdom of heart,
and sorely bruised by coarse and common worldliness as had been every
fibre of her feelings, she could not help perceiving that things got
worse and worse, as the knight grew richer and richer; and often-times
her eyes ran over bitterly for coldness and neglect. There was, indeed,
her mother to fly to; but she never had been otherwise than a very quiet
creature, who made but little show of what feeling she possessed; and
then the daughter's loving heart was affectionately jealous of her
father too.

"Why should he be so cold, with all his impetuosity? so formal, in spite
of his rapidity? so little generous of spirit, notwithstanding all his
wonderful prosperity?"

Ah, Maria, if you had not been quite so unsophisticated, you would have
left out the latter "notwithstanding." Nothing hardens the heart, dear
child, like prosperity; and nothing dries up the affections more
effectually than this hot pursuit of wealth. The deeper a man digs into
the gold mine, the less able--ay, less willing--is he to breathe the
sweet air of upper earth, or to bask in the daylight of heaven:
downward, downward still, he casts the anchor of his grovelling
affections, and neither can nor will have a heart for any thing but
gold.

Moreover, have you wondered, dear Maria, at the common fact (one sees it
in every street, in every village), that parental love is oftenest at
its zenith in the nursery, and then falls lower and lower on the
firmament of human life, as the child gets older and older? Look at all
dumb brutes, the lower animals of this our earth; is it not thus by
nature's law with them? The lioness will perish to preserve that very
whelp, whom she w